This just cannot continue, surely?

[Fish]

When everyone is feeling the pinch with bills rising from all directions and we suddenly start experiencing record cold spells, longer winters and adverse weather conditions, the fairness of ever rising energy bills every year has to be questioned!

British Gas raised their tariffs by 6% last year and are now recording an annual profit of £606m for last year, a rise of 11%.

All these companies that have us by the short and curly's keep saying we are paying for the years before gas when it was more expensive and yet still make decent profits the following year! They say they are reducing costs and investing more to be more efficient, and yet still put tariffs up and make bigger profits!

I'm all for companies being successful but come on, this is just getting daft now with the average household shelling out £1200.00 a year for gas and not far behind that with electric.

But what's the answer? I don't think the government will ever intervene as their simply getting more taxes from it all!

http://news.sky.com/story/1057524/british-gas-sees-profit-up-11-percent-to-606m

 

[Fish]

This has taken 2 hours to show?

What's occurring?

Also other topics missing?

 

[cookelad]

Competition is the answer! Fuel companies don't compete with each other they're happy to share the customers not fight over them!

 

[pokerjoke]

The trouble is it will continue,it has for years.
Along with petrol,diesel,poll tax
The other problem is wages,my wage has certainly not increased in line with these bills.
I can see problems ahead,personally and globally.

 

[GreiginFife]

The problem I have with it all is that we get quoted the line that "due to increased wholesale costs we need to pass this on to the consumer" which is all well and good but if that's the case and they get hit with a c.6% increase and so do we then the generated profit should remain stable. What we see instead is a 6-8% increase to our bills and 10-15% increase in the companies profits... That doesn't work no matter how you cut it, it comes back to being rip off Britain.

 

[JustOne]

British Gas raised their tariffs by 6% last year and are now recording an annual profit of £606m for last year, a rise of 11%.

How much annual profit is that per person that receives gas?

 

[Liverbirdie]

Re-nationalise now!

We were told - but you'll have more choice!

The only choice is who do you go to rip you off.

 

[GreiginFife]

How much annual profit is that per person that receives gas?

That level of granularity isn't correct. If you were to try and use a break down level to try and justify then it would need to be household that receives gas.
Regardless of what it works out at per capita; if the % rise in profit is far greater than the "required" % increase to the householder then there is something wrong. There should be at least a slight correlation.

 

[Doon frae Troon]

How much annual profit is that per person that receives gas?

£49 per household p/a.
Does not sound too excessive to me.

 

[Val]

£49 per household p/a.
Does not sound too excessive to me.

I agree with that as much as it pains me to the cost in my home, I have no problem with anyone making £50 profit from me in a year.

At the end of the day businesses are there to make money.

 

[G1BB0]

£49 per household, mine has gone up that much a month! (gas and leccy combined)

 

[Doon frae Troon]

I would like to be able to buy gas.
Our fairly remote wee village is not on the circuit.
Costs me about £1500 pa just to heat the house with oil.

 

[williamalex1]

Re-nationalise now!

We were told - but you'll have more choice!

The only choice is who do you go to rip you off.

Your first line is the best idea i've heard on the forum , just add electricity, banks , railways, lotto , steel, and meat to the list .

 

[Cherry13]

Your first line is the best idea i've heard on the forum , just add electricity, banks , railways, lotto , steel, and meat to the list .

And do what with the circa 200,000 employees directly or indirectly employed within the industry? Maybe we should question how much the govt has made in relation to this profit as well... nationaising the industry simply wouldnt work in this day and age.

Also the average profit from a residential customer is about £18 per year. The majority of profit comes from B2B or generation.

 

[Liverbirdie]

I'm no communist, more a champagne socialist (well lambrini).

I'm also no great follower of the political systems much nowadays, as all as nearly as bad as each other. However, capitalism has failed us over the last 5 years. I know there are peaks and troughs, but when I was younger you could afford to go out 2-3 nights a week, go the match, have nice clothes, holidays and more and I wasn't on megabucks.

What do we have now:-

Beer is extortionate, petrol equally. Gas and leccy through the roof, food has probably doubled in price over the last 10 years. The match is silly ticket prices now (not govt's fault, I know). The banks have been bailed out by the people's money, pensions will be worth sod all when we retire at 67!

The only thing stopping riots in the streets (oh yes we had them last year) for most people is the fact that mortgage rates are at an all time low.

At least when it was nationalised, it wasn't run very efficiently, but bills were cheap and it probably employed more people in them days, so keeping more off the dole, and giving more people jobs.

 

[Mungoscorner]

Another of Maggies great idea's !
Privatisation will create competition which will in turn lead to cheaper prices ?
Is that so ?

 

[Fader]

In all this and no-one has mentioned the water industry yet! Water Prices are going up again this year from April 1st and in some areas by upto 9% and were being told the reason for this is to pay for potential water shortages and to help prevent drought from re-occurring, like last years wettest drought on record!

I work in the water industry and even I can't defend the price hikes, cost of living increases each year whilst the wages don't move to assist us to maintain the standards we need just to provide for our families.

 

[Paul_Stewart]

One of the ways to prevent huge future increases is to build more nuclear power stations and renovate the ones we have now. But no the green brigade won't allow it. There is one clown I play golf with who is always bitching about energy prices just like the valid points made on this forum, but he is a signed-up member of the "Build absolutely nothing anywhere" brigade.

 

[MegaSteve]

I can remember when UK taxpayers footed the bill for North Sea gas/oil exploration and were told that in every probability the reward would be 'free' gas supplies...

 

[SocketRocket]

I have Cooperative Energy. They didn't raise prices this winter and actually lowered Electricity by two percent. No shareholders, a single tariff and you get a dividend on your energy bills. :thup: